Post production method: Normalising the tune

ive seen a post that says normalising your tune in audacity will help it sound louder and fuller, i tried it and it does sound louder but im not too sure if this is merely a case of pumping the gain up, someone tell me if this method is ok or not, my instinct tells me that it doesnt work but i need some opinions

Well normalizing is actually just bringing the level of the audio signal up to a normal level, which would be around -0.3dB on a digital system. If you would actually make it a little "fuller" then I would start by using a limiter like the Waves L2 Maximizer or the limiter inside the Izotope Ozone Mastering Suite, I don't know of the free ones. But the limiters allow you to set the maximum level on -0.3dB and then push the signal up to the desired level. But be careful to not overdo it, I usually go to about 3dB gain reduction max!

i usually export my tunes at -6db in case i want to get them mastered, yeah i did it to a tune it normalised to -3db, but is louder than if i exported the origianl tune at -3db, obvs it wont go over 0, just wanted to make sure theres nothing fundamentally wrong with this method.

it normalizes everything, including noise floor so whatever noise there is to bring up gets brought up. which pertains to a curious distortion method i heard about aaaages ago called noise floor distortion which works like so, you normalize it and bring it down over and over until its noisy or something i cant be sure

it normalizes everything, including noise floor so whatever noise there is to bring up gets brought up. which pertains to a curious distortion method i heard about aaaages ago called noise floor distortion which works like so, you normalize it and bring it down over and over until its noisy or something i cant be sure

Normalizing works differently for everybody and the effect it has on your track is dependent on how your track sounds before hand. Some may notice a huge increase in 'loudness' while others won't notice much change.

If you like what it does to your track then go with it! Normalizing works well when you want to bring a set of tracks to a certain volume level.

Don't use any normalisation, some programs level up different parts of audio to make them more similar to the track average, meaning you get bits increased in volume where you wanted it to remain relative. Rather than normalise the peaks to -3db it normalises the track to -3d.

Normalizing a track isn't really the best way forward. Normalizing looks at the loudest peak of the tune (be it a drum hit/clap etc) and brings THAT peak up to 0dB. The rest of the track is then increased in volume by the same amount. This means that although that one small peak is at 0dB, it's quite likely that the rest of the track won't be at 0dB on the whole.

The best thing is to use a loudness maximizer (download izotope ozone). This reduces the volume of the loud peaks that I mentioned above, because you can't really notice the effect of this, so it makes no difference. It then increases the volume of the whole track, making it sound louder and fuller.

Normalizing a track isn't really the best way forward. Normalizing looks at the loudest peak of the tune (be it a drum hit/clap etc) and brings THAT peak up to 0dB. The rest of the track is then increased in volume by the same amount. This means that although that one small peak is at 0dB, it's quite likely that the rest of the track won't be at 0dB on the whole.

The best thing is to use a loudness maximizer (download izotope ozone). This reduces the volume of the loud peaks that I mentioned above, because you can't really notice the effect of this, so it makes no difference. It then increases the volume of the whole track, making it sound louder and fuller.

Don't use any normalisation, some programs level up different parts of audio to make them more similar to the track average, meaning you get bits increased in volume where you wanted it to remain relative. Rather than normalise the peaks to -3db it normalises the track to -3d.

AGAiN does depend on the software/method.

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Ok so if you have the option this would be normalising based on peak level or normalising based on rms level. The first is harmless I guess, the latter nasty.

So if you mix down a track and then gain it into a limiter until it just flickers, then that's normalised based on peak level, then push it another 3 db into the limiter that's the same as a 3db limit and yeah, that's my mastering process. Doesn't always work,, ah, meh, where do I download waves?